MAX BLUMENTHAL

Read my latest, "White Noise," a background piece in the American Prospect about the Regnery family's role in helping a coalition of white nationalists and anti-immigrationists mount a stealth takeover of the GOP.

I exited a dank, virtually empty 34th street subway
station and found myself in a fortress city patrolled by husky,
flak-jacketed, shotgun toting cops and hovering
helicopters. The convention's opening night was not to
be interrupted by protesters and, as soon as I entered
the convention hall, Sen. Lindsay Graham took the
podium to remind the nation that "there will be no
class warfare in this hall." And so it was. There was
not a hint of class warfare, at least, not of the kind
that emanates from the lower rungs of society. In
fact, I did not hear a single mention of domestic
policy.
This made sense considering that the night's two major
speakers, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, found little
to agree with in the president's domestic agenda. They
were mere window dressing for the GOP's social
Darwinistic goals and they knew it. McCain was drawn
to the stage by party loyalty and excessive pressure
from the Bush camp (with the possible threat of
reprisal) and Giuliani, pure careerism.
I sat in the mezzanine section above the floor with
many of the GOP's big donors, consultants and party
activists. As McCain ambled to the podium, a guy to my
left shouted "Go back to Arizona." He would nod his
head in disapproval throughout McCain's address while
the response from the rest of those sitting in my
section was tepid at best.
With his tinny voice and monotone delivery, McCain has
always been a mediocre speaker. Last night was no
departure. His speech was laced with platitudes about
how we're "fighting for love" in the war on terror. I
counted McCain using the word "love" six times in five
minutes. The crowd was starving for red meat, they were
eager to rise to their feet and roar, but all
McCain could muster was a dig at Michael Moore
for being "disingenuous." The crowd howled in approval.
They hate Hollywood, that secular humanist hole run by
curly haired elites of a certain ethnicity. So why
shouldn't they hate New York too? Well, they do, but more
on that later.
McCain's speech had its own moments of disingenuity too, for
instance, when he asserted that Saddam had blocked UN inspectors
from entering Iraq. I don't think Hans Blix would agree with
that.
After McCain left the stage to a round of polite applause, three
9/11 widows came on for the evening's requisite round of
exploiting "that crystal clear morning in September." Tears
rolled and streaked over-applied foundation on cheeks from
the mezzanine to the floor, priming the crowd for Guiliani's
inevitable evocation of 9/11.
Not only did 9/11 invigorate the Bush presidency with a raison
d'etre, it resurrected Giuliani's political career and thrust him
onto the national stage. Caked in ash in the belly of a confused,
wounded city, Giuliani was a pillar of strength while Bush circled
Nebraska and Ari Fleischer spun lies about Air Force One being
targeted. The mayor's draconian policies toward the city's poor and
homeless, his ardent defense of racial profiling, his refusal to
criticize the cops who shot an unarmed Amadou Diallo 41 times in the
back were forgotten. Now he's harboring presidential ambitions.
Giuliani reminded the crowd of Bush's heroics on -- 9/14.
He waded into a crowd of manly construction workers at Ground Zero and
"they told him what to do to their terrorists in their own language,"
Giuliani said. Did Bush follow their advice? Were hardhats advising the
president on foreign policy? "I agree," was what Bush told one construction
worker, according to Giuliani.
Another bizarre moment came when Giuliani cast himself as the former
mayor of an occupied city, the Paul Bremer of New York. "I've never seen
so many Republicans in New York," he told the hall. "I finally
feel at home." Giuliani had rejected his own city.
Finally, Giuliani rattled off a litany of examples of Europe's appeasement
of the terrorists, including Italy's release of the terrorists who
threw Leon Klinghoffer off the Achille Lauro in 1985. Of course, Rudy failed
to mention another instance of appeasement that year: the pullout
of US troops from Beirut by Reagan after a Hezbollah attack. Through
vintage Republican rhetorical tactics of omission and insinuation, the Republicans hoped to project Bush to the nation as Winston Churchill and Kerry,
Neville Chamberlain. It's the strong, steady man of courage who promised
that the terrorists would hear from us (albeit accidentally) and delivered
(although just how is being left unspecified), versus the waffler.
Interestingly, while Kerry was treated as a joke,
I noticed a concerted effort to dull the effect of John Edwards' "Two
Americas" theme by casting it as an attempt to somehow divide America
and obscure the fact that it is a critique of Bush's divisive policies.
Internal GOP polling must have showed that Edwards had proven effective
with rural swing voters.
Tonight, more moderate speakers will stick to the RNC talking points, which
were best summarized by Giuliani's statement that, "We're not going
to sit here and let history define our president. We're going to write
our own history." Right!
As Giuliani left the stage, Frank Sinatra appeared on the big screen singing
"New York, New York." Here was the voice of the immigrants who landed on
America's shores in the early 20th century, filled the ranks of the middle
class and reinvigorated America's culture, economy and institutions. He
was a cosmopolitan figure who hung out with presidents but stayed
true to his roots and never distanced himself from the mobsters
he knew from his Hoboken stomping grounds. In death, Sinatra is
the eternal symbol of New York's mythologized past. At the convention,
he was ignored as delegates hurried out of the hall. They prefered
the backlash suburban country of Darryl Worley, who reminded them earlier
in the evening that protesters were terrorists, and Saddam was
Bin Laden's partner in crime.
All the delegates' hotels are color coded on a Tom Ridge-style chart
to match with the exits of Madison Square Garden. That way, they can
march back to the safety of their rooms without ever having to set
foot in the city that represents everything they have rejected and
seek to obstruct. I entered the subway station across from Madison
Square Garden. Thousands of Republicans were on the streets outside,
closely guarded by armed sentinels. Inside the subway station, I
was alone, on my way back into the city to be with the people who
were attacked on 9/11 and who want nothing more than to be heard
by the rest of their country.

I've been all around Manhattan for the past two days and the question is, where are all the Republican delegates? I know they're here. I saw them on the Amtrak train that started in Dixieland and shot through the Northeast corridor to Penn station. They were reading books like "The Faith of George W. Bush," cheering whenever the conductor mentioned the RNC and generally looking and acting parochial. Their mood was blithe and excited until the power went out on the tracks in Newark and the entire train was forced to ride the New Jersey PATH commuter rail into the city. As the packed PATH car wobbled, lurched and groaned its way in lower Manhattan, I noticed the faces of the delegates from the Amtrak train had affected a noticeable expression of horror and confusion. Now George W. Bush's good people have all but disappeared.
I marched yesterday in the United for Peace and Justice demonstration, the most massive protest I've ever seen or been a part of. Despite all the tabloid hype about nihilistic anarchists, the demonstration was nothing less than a display of youth, joy and song: a perfect rebuke to the Bush agenda. I was most surprised by the overwhelming pro-Kerry sentiment of the protest. I saw far more signs that read "A Vote for Nader is a Vote for Bush" than Nader/Camejo signs, though I did encounter a Nader contingent chanting, "Najaf will be free!" Those Mahdi army Shi'ites are some real freedom fighters.
Unfortunately, the NYPD tried to fulfill the prophecy of the tabloids by inserting provocateurs. I don't have any evidence of procation, but it was odd that someone set an effigee ablaze as the march passed Madison Square garden and an expectant FDNY crew, who hosed it down immediately. Meanwhile, the police rushed into the march and fenced it off in what was clearly a pre-conceived manuever designed to cut the snake in two. As protesters were pressed against the steel gates the police had erected, I stood to the side and watched as a lieutenant ordered a riot squad to wade into the crowd with batons waving. Fortunately, the marchers didn't respond to the provocation and the march proceeded peacefully uptown.
I headed to Central Park later and saw a somewhat dissapointing scene. Only about two thousand marchers were gathered on the Great Lawn and the atmosphere was more like a picnic than a protest. Undercovers were everywhere and cops were deployed in disproportionate numbers to keep watch over the picnickers. It was clear that by denying a protest permit, Mike Bloomberg was denying protesters a free concert with speeches and a chance to galvanize under a single, unifying theme against the Bush agenda. And by splitting the protest up and confining it to narrow avenues, Bloomberg had denied the media the opportunity to show just how massive the protest was. Now the protests have diffused throughout Manhattan and it's hard to predict what will happen, though the overwhelming feeling among protesters seems to be the kind any community has when it is set upon by outsiders who openly wield an agenda that is hostile to their aspirations and interests.
I'm headed toward the gates of Madison Square Garden and into the belly of the beast tonight. Since I'm wearing slacks and a button-down shirt, I'm a little worried some protesters will think I'm a delegate and give me a pie in the face. Look out for my take on the convention's first night tomorrow in the PM.

Whoa. I missed this in yesterday's Jerusalem Post:

The purpose of the meeting with Ghorbanifar was to undermine a pending deal that the White House had been negotiating with the Iranian government. At the time, Iran had considered turning over five al-Qaida operatives in exchange for Washington dropping its support for Mujahadeen Khalq, an Iraq-based rebel Iranian group listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department.

I've been following this group for a while now. They're a Marxist, cult-like organization that, according to the 9/11 commission, was financed by Saddam Hussein to operate in Southeastern Iraq and launch periodic raids on Iran. They killed over dozens of civilians during bombings in Tehran throughout the 1980's. Most of their members are females who are heavily indoctrinated, encouraged to break all family and social ties and are essentially brainwashed cadres.
Here's an excerpt from the must read Times magazine piece, "the Cult of Rajavi:"

As the leaders like to boast, the Mujahedeen is a family affair. (''We have three generations of martyrs: grandmothers, mothers, daughters.'') Most of the girls I was meeting had grown up in Mujahedeen schools in Ashraf, where they lived separated from their parents. Family visits were allowed on Thursday nights and Fridays. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, many of these girls were transported to Jordan and then smuggled to various countries -- Germany, France, Canada, Denmark, England, the United States -- where they were raised by guardians who were usually Mujahedeen supporters. When they were 18 or 19, many of them decided to come back to Iraq and fill the ranks of the youngest Mujahedeen generation. Though ''decided'' is probably not the right word, since from the day they were born, these girls and boys were not taught to think for themselves but to blindly follow their leaders. ''Every morning and night, the kids, beginning as young as 1 and 2, had to stand before a poster of Massoud and Maryam, salute them and shout praises to them,'' Nadereh Afshari, a former Mujahedeen deep-believer, told me. Afshari, who was posted in Germany and was responsible for receiving Mujahedeen children during the gulf war, said that when the German government tried to absorb Mujahedeen children into their education system, the Mujahedeen refused. Many of the children were sent to Mujahedeen schools, particularly in France. The Rajavis, Afshari went on to say, ''saw these kids as the next generation's soldiers. They wanted to brainwash them and control them.'' Which may explain the pattern to their stories: a journey to self-empowerment and the enlightenment of self-sacrifice inspired by the light and wisdom of Maryam and Massoud.

The MEK also has a lobbying office on Capitol Hill, right down the street from the Longworth building. They've made a few powerful friends there, including right-wing Cuban nut Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and the nativist Tom Tancredo (R-CO). Both were a little dismayed when they heard the MEK actually battled US troops during the March, 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I don't know much about the MEK's relationship to the neocons, but Juan Cole does.

The Neoconservatives have some sort of shadowy relationship with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization or MEK. Presumably its leaders have secretly promised to recognize Israel if they ever succeed in overthrowing the ayatollahs in Iran. When the US recently categorized the MEK as a terrorist organization, there were howls of outrage from "scholars" associated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a wing of AIPAC), such as ex-Trotskyite Patrick Clawson and Daniel Pipes. MEK is a terrorist organization by any definition of the term, having blown up innocent people in the course of its struggle against the Khomeini government. (MEK is a cult-like mixture of Marx and Islam). The MEK had allied with Saddam, who gave them bases in Iraq from which to hit Iran. When the US overthrew Saddam, it raised the question of what to do with the MEK. The pro-Likud faction in the Pentagon wanted to go on developing their relationship with the MEK and using it against Tehran.

So it transpires that the Iranians were willing to give up 5 key al-Qaeda operatives, whom they had captured, in return for MEK members.

Franklin, Rhode and Ledeen conspired with Ghorbanifar and SISMI to stop that trade. It would have led to better US-Iran relations, which they wanted to forestall, and it would have damaged their proteges, the MEK.

Since high al-Qaeda operatives like Saif al-Adil and possibly even Saad Bin Laden might know about future operations, or the whereabouts of Bin Laden, for Franklin and Rhode to stop the trade grossly endangered the United States.

Laura Rozen has the best scoop on Larry Franklin.

Who is Larry Franklin? From the Jerusalem Post:

Franklin, a colonel in the US Air Force Reserve, served in the past as an attache at the US embassy in Israel, one source told The Jerusalem Post.

A US Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv said, "the Embassy has no comment on this issue."

Sources in Jerusalem said it is quite possible that Larry Franklin, the alleged Pentagon informant, met with AIPAC officials as part of routine conversations lobbyists always have with officials, but that it is inconceivable this is something that could be construed as espionage.

The FBI's investigation of Larry Franklin began not long after it was leaked that the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans sent two Defense officials, one of them Franklin, to Paris to meet with a dissident Iranian arms trader.

The latter, Manucher Ghorbanifar, played a central role in the Iran-Contra affair – in which Israel had a major involvement – in the mid 1980's.

Now who's Manucher Ghorbanifar? Here's details of his meeting with Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin in Paris in 2001:

What was international man of mystery Manucher Ghorbanifar up to when he met with top Pentagon experts on Iran? In a NEWSWEEK interview in Paris last month, Ghorbanifar, a former Iranian spy who helped launch the Iran-contra affair, says one of the things he discussed with Defense officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin at meetings in Rome in December 2001 (and in Paris last June with only Rhode) was regime change in Iran. Ghorbanifar says there are Iranians capable of organizing a peaceful revolution against the ruling theocracy. He says his contacts know where Saddam Hussein hid $340 million in cash. With American help, he says, this money could be retrieved and half used to overthrow the ayatollahs.

Of course, this must go all the way down the neocon nexus, so here's a good background piece on Harold Rhode, the Feith underling who could be involved.
I've been traveling all day so I'm playing catch up on this thing, but I've got a suspicion that if AIPAC was involved in this, their senior foreign policy analyst Steve Rosen must have at least been aware.
Another area that bears investigation is JINSA, the Israeli think tank linking the neocons, the Jewish lobby and Turkish and Israeli intelligence. Here's some good background from Jason Vest:

Almost thirty years ago, a prominent group of neoconservative hawks found an effective vehicle for advocating their views via the Committee on the Present Danger, a group that fervently believed the United States was a hair away from being militarily surpassed by the Soviet Union, and whose raison d'être was strident advocacy of bigger military budgets, near-fanatical opposition to any form of arms control and zealous championing of a Likudnik Israel. Considered a marginal group in its nascent days during the Carter Administration, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 CPD went from the margins to the center of power.

Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a shadow defense establishment during the Carter Administration, so, too, did the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues--support for national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey and American unilateralism in general--into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core.

In the late 1990's, JINSA sponsored a series of lectures by Ahmed Chalabi.
Oh yeah, Ghorbinfar is a close associate of Michael Ledeen, whose daughter, Simone, works for the CPA. More later I'm sure.

The Family Research Council is getting all Confucian and stuff for the convention. I never knew the goyim liked fortune cookies too:

FRC "Fortune Telling" the Pro-Family Vote
August 27, 2004 - Friday
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 27, 2004
CONTACT IN NEW YORK: Genevieve Wood, (202) 465-5259

How to motivate the pro-family base

NEW YORK - It has been widely reported that four million evangelicals stayed home in 2000. What will turn them out in 2004? President Bush's "fortune" on Nov. 2 rests with the pro-family base. During the Republican Convention, Family Research Council is handing out thousands of fortune cookies containing four messages the Bush campaign should use to motivate pro-family voters:


Real Men Marry Women:
Support a Constitutional Amendment to Protect Marriage

Save the Constitution!
Impeach an Activist Judge

Cures for Diseases - Know the Score
Embryonic Stem Cell 0
Adult Stem Cell 45

#1 Reason to Ban Human Cloning:
Hillary Clinton

Read my latest in today's Alternet.org, The Voting Machine Jackpot. Here's the teaser:

While the rest of us are concerned about votes being stolen, the voting machine industry is squeezing millions from the public treasury...

There's a good piece out by Laurie Rozen on the neocons' latest venture -- Jim Woolsey and Joe Lieberman's Committee on the Present Danger. It's a must read for anyone who follows these figures and their attempts at influencing policy.

With full-page ads in the Washington Post and the New York Times, and a sparkling new multi-media website flashing photos of recent terror attacks in India and Indonesia, the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) re-launched itself with a bang last month, proclaiming its new mission to be "dedicated to winning the war on terror."

What it didn't say is that the billionaire philanthropists behind the CPD intend to broaden this "war on terror" beyond al-Qaeda to focus on all militant jihadist groups, including Israel's perceived enemies.

The Middle East's "lone democracy" has a new strategy for confronting terrorism that combines the hardnose tactics of Charles Bronson starring as Jonathan Netanyahu with the schoolyard ingenuity of Bart Simpson: attacking peaceful Palestinian protesters with stink bombs. Brilliant! I'm singing the Ha'tikva as I write.

Reuters News Service
JERUSALEM - Israel's army has developed a pungent new weapon for driving back Palestinian protesters -- the skunk bomb.

The stink bomb, containing a synthetic version of the odor skunks release to deter predators, has been developed for breaking up protests and stone-throwing confrontations without causing casualties, security officials said today.

The foul-smelling weapon was invented as part of efforts to replace rubber bullets, which have killed scores of Palestinians during a nearly four-year-old uprising.

The new device, which is not yet operational, releases a cloud so pungent that according to initial tests it permeates clothes for five years, the officials said.

Palestinians said such a weapon could be particularly unpleasant for devout Muslims since they cannot pray with clothes that smell and would have to throw them away.

From where will our future leaders emerge?

You say the moderate speakers at the RNC are just window dressing for a social Darwinist agenda and the religious right's kulturkampf? Impossible. I mean, Rod Paige seems so compassionate. He's almost reminds me of a real black person.
And that John McCain -- he's a real straight shooter. And he's compassionate too. Didn't you see the way he hugged Bush like a big teddy bear? Who cares if he opposed a federal holiday recognizing Martin Luther King Jr?
And who cares that Gary Bauer is jumping for joy about the way the convention platform is being hammered out. Here is an excerpt from one of the "End of Days" emails Bauer sends out to his 100,000 or so supporters:

The draft marriage plank of the Republican Party
platform is unambiguous in its support for a constitutional amendment
to
preserve traditional marriage and the platform is equally
uncompromising on
the right to life. On values issues, this platform boldly and proudly
reflects the grand tradition of the Party of Lincoln and Reagan!

My friends, I want you to know just how well you have been represented
here
over the past few days. The leadership of the pro-family movement,
myself
and many long-time friends and allies in the trenches of the cultural
war,
have been working into the wee hours of the night, talking to delegates
and
recommending improvements, all to ensure that your values are truly
reflected in this important document.

Our changes and suggestions have been warmly received and we are making
tremendous progress. In fact, our efforts thus far have been so
successful
that a coalition of pro-abortion and same-sex “marriage” advocates just
put
out a press release condemning the delegates and the platform
proceedings!
This action so infuriated one of the delegates he publicly stated that
their press release proved that these so-called “Republican” groups
were
not acting in good faith and were only interested in embarrassing and
damaging the president.

I don't know if Arianna's strategy is a winning one, but I do appreciate her statement of an obvious, but seemingly verboten, truth: courting the culturally retarded suburban swing voter dilutes the integrity of any candidate's message by diverting a campaign from important public policy discussion to reassuring platitudes.
She also marshals an array of maddening facts to make her point, including the following:

For instance, it turns out these irresolute souls are more likely to be white than black, female than male, married than single, and live in the suburbs rather than large cities. They are less likely to think that politics is relevant to their lives. They are likely to be younger and less educated than the general electorate - but older and more affluent than those who have committed to a candidate. Most will not make their decision until the week before the election.

And, perhaps most important of all, undecided voters love cartoons, talk shows, "CSI: Miami", and reality shows like "Big Brother" and "Fear Factor" (no word yet on whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi, boxers or briefs, Alien or Predator - but I'm sure that info is being tabulated by some highly paid polling company as we speak)....

The repugnant non-story of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is an irony-drenched exhibit A in the case against focusing on undecided voters. Consider: After being ardently wooed, courted, pursued and catered to by Team Kerry, a sizeable chunk of this capricious lot has taken the noxious bait being dangled by the anti-Kerry slime machine and swallowed it hook, line and stinker.

According to a new poll by the National Annenberg Election Survey, 46 percent of undecided and persuadable voters say they find the group's vile ads "very or somewhat believable".

These look like some of the better documentaries that will come out late this year and in 2005. And it's nice to see George Soros' Open Society Institute supporting something other than the overthrow of foreign governments.

Sundance picks docus for grants
By Chris Gardner
The Sundance Institute Documentary Fund has unveiled the 11 feature-length documentaries that have been selected for the second round of grants for this year.

A committee of human rights experts and film professionals selected the recipients from more than 400 projects submitted by filmmakers worldwide. The fund, established at the Sundance Institute in 2002 by a grant from the Open Society Institute, is dedicated to supporting films that focus on current human rights issues, freedom of expression, social justice and civil liberties.

The grant recipients are:

o Natalia Almada for "The Other Side," a look at the economic crisis forcing many Mexicans to turn to drug trafficking and dangerous border crossings.

o Raed Andoni for "Improvisation," an exploration of the conflict of identity faced by different generations of Palestinians.

o Eugene Jarecki for "Why We Fight," a look at the anatomy of the American war machine.

o Anne Makepeace for "Refugee Dreams," the story of a year in the lives of two extended Somali Bantu families as they leave Africa for America.

o Nicole Newnham and David Grabias for "Sentenced Home," the story of ongoing deportations of convicted Cambodian Americans.

o Dennis O'Rourke for "Land Mines: A Love Story," a look at people whose lives have been defined by land mines.

o Leslie Woodhead for "Hasan's War," one man's quest to bring the authors of the Srebenica genocide to justice.

o Anat Zuria for "Sentenced to Marriage," the story of three women who fight for their right to divorce in Israel where there are no civil marriages.

o Renata Gritskova for "After," an examination of the lives of young men imprisoned in Belarus after they are released and attempt to assimilate into mainstream culture.

o Sabiha Sumar for "Musharraf's Destiny," a look at the challenges facing Pakistan's President Musharraf.

o Mercedes Moncada for "The Immortal," and investigation of post-civil war Nicaragua.

The 11 films will receive a total of $435,000. "These projects were selected from among the strongest field of submissions we've ever received," said Diane Weyermann, director of Sundance Institute's Documentary Film Program.

Hopefully nobody's noticed, but posting has been a little light recently.
I've been working on a few new pieces and traveling east.
I'll be in New York to cover the convention and all the chaos that will accompany it so expect posting to pick up significantly.
Your donations will make my life easier there.

Modern civilization.

With Bush heading into the RNC (after dispatching a raiding party of literally washed-up drunken sailors to deliver his biggest blow yet against Kerry), the Kerry campaign points out some interesting -- or for Bush, troubling -- facts:

The average winning incumbent has had a job approval rating of 60%. Indeed, every incumbent who has won reelection has had his job approval in the mid-50’s or higher at this point. In recent polling, Bush’s average approval rating has been 48%. President Bush must emerge from his convention having dramatically altered public perception of his performance in office.

In recent years, when incumbents have gone on to victory, 52% of voters, on average, said the country was on the right track. Now, just 37% think things are moving in the right direction. Thus, President Bush must convince the electorate that the nation is in much better shape than voters now believe to be the case.

Every incumbent who has gone on to be reelected has had a double-digit lead at this point.

Following their conventions, the average elected incumbent has held a 16-point lead, while winning incumbents have led by an average of 27 points. Bush will need a very substantial bounce to reach the mark set by his successful predecessors.

Incumbents have enjoyed an average bounce in the vote margin of 8 points.

On average, incumbents’ share of the two-party vote has declined by 4 points between their convention and Election Day.

How the hell did scumbag arms dealer Victor Bout, who used to supply Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, get two -- that's right, two! -- contracts with the Department of Defense? I guess being wanted by Interpol doesn't rule out a gig with Rumsfeld and co.
Africa specialist Douglas Farah (formerly of the Washington Post) has written about this in detail on his blog, which is definitely worth visiting.

I never thought I'd sympathize with Chris Matthews, but then Manzanar Michelle appeared. From Media Matters:

As a guest on Hardball, Malkin claimed that Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis -- the two veterans who were on the swift boat under Kerry's command in Vietnam the night Kerry received the injury that resulted in his first Purple Heart -- had accused Kerry of shooting himself on purpose. Both Zaladonis (who appeared with Kerry at his arrival celebration for the Democratic National Convention) and Runyon have defended Kerry and debunked that specific claim.

The day after Matthews challenged her false accusations, Malkin wrote about her Hardball interview on her personal website. She called Matthews a "caveman" and "a foaming jerk"; decried his "Neanderthal chauvinism" and his MSNBC program's "basement ratings"; and listed the phone numbers for Matthews and his producer.

Later that day, as a guest on the August 20 edition of The Laura Ingraham Show, Malkin was comforted by Ingraham, who asked: "How'd you stop from reaching across and grabbing one of the chins of Chris Matthews?"

What a Zell Out

"My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend. He was once a lieutenant governor -- but he didn't stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984.
-- U.S. Senator Zell Miller to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001

"In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington. Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment.”
-- U.S. Senator Zell Miller to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001

Bush voters are suicidal. Literally.
From the Boston Globe:

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have lower than average suicide rates. All but one voted for Al Gore. Of the remaining 37 states, 29 voted for George W. Bush. The five states with the most lopsided Bush vote (Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, with a margin of 25 percent or more) were all among the top eight for suicide.

What was Josef Mengele doing at Abu Ghraib?
Herr doctor? Herr doctor?

Within the dark realm of George W. Bush's "Ownership Society," the client is always right -- and the first amendment does not necessarily apply:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A man who heckled President Bush at a political rally was fired from his job at an advertising and design company for offending a client who provided tickets to the event.

The fired graphic designer said Saturday he won't try to get his job back.

``I'm mad less about losing the job - I'm more mad about the reasons,'' said Glen Hiller, 35, of Berkeley Springs. ``All I did was show up and voice my opinion.''

Hiller was ushered out of Hedgesville High School on Tuesday after shouting his disagreement with Bush's comments about the war in Iraq war and the search for weapons of mass destruction. The crowd had easily drowned out Hiller with its chant: ``Four more years.''

``He surrounds himself with people who support him,'' Hiller said of Bush. ``Your opinion ... is viewed as right or wrong.''

Flyer for "Swift Boat Vets for Truth, Veterans for Bush, Alachua Bush/Cheney Committee," courtesy of the Alachua County Republican party headquarters, which doubles as the Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters for the county. 

In his painstaking attempt to cut to the heart of conservatism, Philip Agre argues,

But the most central feature of conservatism is deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are better people than they are.

While I didn't agree with all of Agre's points, like the notion that the market is the natural enemy of conservative authoritarianism, I found his arguments intellectually serious and light on rhetoric -- a rarity these days. Worth a read, or at least a skim.

Where Was Cruella?
Kathy Harris was there for her constituents -- two days too late:

In the three days immediately following Hurricane Charley's devastating blow, Gov. Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush, Attorney General Charlie Crist, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and other notable political leaders toured the wreckage.

But there was one significant absence: U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Longboat Key.

Although her district includes the hardest hit counties -- DeSoto, Hardee and Charlotte -- Harris was nowhere to be seen.

Here's more evidence the DLC is a Republican fifth column.
These guys care so much about the middle class in America, but behind the scenes they're pimping themselves out to undemocratic oligarchs around the world.

Apparently truth in advertising is the latest thing Bush has outsourced. 

A revealing exchange during a pre-screened "Ask Bush" rally in Wisconsin:

Q Well, first of all, is that I agree with this gentleman. I'm
glad that we're all praying for you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

Q I'm a local youth minister, recently hired. And one of the
things -- two of the things we've talked about today are enemies and freedom. And I believe that the enemy that we need the greatest freedom from right now happens to be Satan, and it's the enemy that we also don't necessarily always see. There's so many people who are being attacked on every level. A lot of those people are youth that are in our middle schools and our high schools. And I was just wondering how we can do more for faith-based initiatives for children, before they're drug addicts?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I appreciate you saying that. Look, well, first of all, it's for me to call upon people such as yourself to interface with children early, before it's too late. You answered the question by your actions. But in terms of reducing demand for drug -- you ask a specific issue on drug use, for example. We've got a collaborative effort with faith-based groups, community groups, neighborhood groups all aimed at sending the same message you're sending. And it's a kind of universal effort necessary to say to a child, drugs will destroy you. And it's working, frankly. We've reduced drug use by 11 percent in three-and-a-half years -- it's not "we," it's community groups have done so in three-and-a-half years. (Applause.)

You're right, there needs to be a positive message sent to our youth. There also needs to be a focused effort on helping the drug addicts who consume most of the drugs. A percentage of -- a relatively small percentage of the people consume most of the drugs, and that's why I'm working with Congress to fund a drug recovery program, of which an integral

part of that will be a faith-based initiative. And the way it works is, is a person gets a voucher that he or she can redeem at the program he or she chooses that meets her own, or his own needs. And that includes the ability of faith-based programs to become involved, as I told you, with helping people change their hearts and, therefore, change their lives.

Thank you for what you do. I appreciate you being a youth minister.
(Applause.)

In a related story, General William Boykin is back on the radar.

Dirty Deal
As with almost all sex scandals, the sex part of the Deal Hudson scandal is sad, seedy and a little beside the point. If anything, what Hudson did and how he handled the aftermath of his drunken dalliance (by having his students recite sexually explicit literature with his alleged victim in class) reflect the same viciousness and hubris apparent in his writing. This is also one of the few sex scandals associated with Catholicism that doesn't involve little boys. Of course, that's because Hudson is a Protestant, and one who has been criticized by conservative Catholics for being more effective at winning Karl Rove's favor than actually winning Bush Catholic votes.
The real story here is Hudson's weird path from Baptist missionary to Scaife-funded right-wing operative, which is told in note-perfect fashion by Joe Feuerhard for the National Catholic Reporter. Word of the release of Feuerhard's story so terrified Hudson that he pre-empted it with a piece of his own. From the Catholic Reporter's editor:

Deal Hudson, the influential Catholic publisher and political operative, attempted, in his words, "to get a head start" on a story that NCR Washington correspondent Joe Feuerherd has been working on for more than four months. Hudson's ploy was to write a response to a yet-unpublished story. He was able to place the response on the Web site of National Review, the conservative magazine.
As an aside, I find it intriguing that National Review would allow its Web site to be used in such a fashion. The publication to which Hudson referred was never named; no one ever called NCR to confirm whether we were doing a story or to determine the nature of the piece. The National Review allowed Hudson to characterize the unpublished story -- which was still in the process of being written -- as an unfair look at his personal life.

The Revealer, one of the better liberal religion web magazines, has a smart write-up on the Hudson scandal.
Oh, and here's Hudson's contorted response, which he uses as a springboard to attack poor John Kerry (did Kerry use mental telepathy to force moral-monger Hudson to shoot tequila and molest a drunk student?).

Is it really possible for reporters on the ground in Sudan to give readers an accurate assessment of the situation? While I value the coverage journalists like Marc Lacey are providing, after pondering this map of Western oil interests in Sudan, I'm inclined to say no.
For a larger version of the map, click here.
It's also worth reading (or at least browsing) Human Rights Watch's report on how oil interests have factored into ethnic warfare during Sudan's recent history.
 

I recommend reading Greg Palast's analysis of the situation in Venezuela.
I also recommend seeing the Manchurian Candidate, a brilliant polemic that bears little resemblance to John Frankenheimer's original. The film's biggest triumph is in its success at conveying to viewers -- or at least this one -- the sense of terror not only evoked by terrorists, but by the "war on terror" itself.
Sorry, this isn't the anti-Bush film Frank Rich wants it to be, although it does repeatedly allude to the Bush family's cancerous effect on American life. It's an anti-corporate film and perhaps an anti-war film -- and one that is long overdue.

Despite the GOP's most aggressive outreach effort to Jewish voters ever, and despite the fact that Bush has done whatever he can to let Israel do whatever it wants, a new NJDC poll shows that Jewish voters prefer Senator Kerry over President Bush by a whopping 75-22 percent margin -- essentially identical to the 76-21 percent margin by which the same respondents voted for then-Vice President Al Gore over then-Governor Bush in 2000.
Maybe, just maybe, Israel isn't the only thing American Jews care about.

Bill Maher's audience gave Michelle "Manzanar" Malkin an appropriate greeting -- derisive laughter. She doesn't mention this pathetic episode on her blog. You can see a full spread of Malkin mugs here. 

From the Times' coverage of McGreevey:

Two people involved in the negotiations — one on each side — said, however, that the most serious allegation was that Mr. McGreevey forcibly performed oral sex on Mr. Cipel.

Now, here's my only original thought on this sorry episode: How in the hell does one man forcibly perform oral sex on another man? Just how is that possible?
(Please don't actually explain this to me)

Finally, an article about Wal-Mart's financial support of PBS.
But is Wal-Mart trying to "shine its image," as the Times suggests, or is it attempting to use its grants to prevent the financially-strapped PBS from airing any more negative exposes?

A Victory to Celebrate
"The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country," wrote George Folsom, president of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a taxpayer funded Washington NGO which claims to "promote democracy worldwide." Was Folsom referring to yesterday's recall election, in which a record number of Venezuelans voted overwhelmingly to let president Hugo Chavez finish out his term? No, Folsom was cheering a US-backed coup in 2002 which briefly removed Chavez from power.
Despite the anti-democratic tactics of Chavez's opposition, which is comprised mainly of the urban bourgeoisie and a sector many Venezuelans refer to as "the squalid oligarchy," they have continued to enjoy enormous bipartisan support from Washington. They have been funded with hundreds of thousands of dollars from IRI, the National Endowment for Democracy, and perhaps even the CIA, which has refused to disclose information regarding their involvement with the opposition party Sumate.
Even James Carville -- yes, James Carville -- has helped the opposition in their attempt to simplistically portray Chavez to the world as a dictator disguised as a democrat. So did former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg. And John Kerry issued a scathing condemnation of Chavez's rule, accusing him of supporting Colombian "insurgents" and fighting US anti-drug efforts.
If there really is any evidence to any of Kerry's claims (which sound more like Rand Beers than John Kerry), I dare anyone to provide me with it. It seems to me that Chavez has earned his perception as a dictator because of his penchant for wearing military fatigues, because he gives 7-hour-long, rambling addresses on state TV and because he has warm ties with Cuba, which, by the way, has donated 10,000 highly trained doctors to work the impoverished Venezuelan countryside.
Chavez's opposition to Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and his reorganization of Venezuela's national oil company, PdVsa, which ensured that its revenues could finally trickle down to the poor (oil revenue for social programs has increased from $40 million to $1.8 billion under Chavez), might have also rubbed Washington the wrong way.
So I don't really think Chavez's undemocratic nature, if he has one, is really the true source of US antipathy toward his rule (we'll support Mubarak forever, won't we?). This case became especially hard to make after he allowed Venezuela to become the only country in the Americas (including the US) to have allowed its president to face a recall vote.
I think it's time the US recognize Chavez -- despite his flaws -- as just as legitimate as any of the other figures it supports in Latin America. Just as legitimate as Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, a former ally of Pablo Escobar who wants to create an autonomous region in his country to be ruled by right-wing death squad leaders; just as legitimate as Peru's Alejandro Toledo, who is mired in a corruption scandal and has an 8% approval rating; just as legitimate as El Salvador's Tony Saca, who owns almost every TV station in that country and relies on remissions to keep his country's flagging economy afloat.
That recognition means ending US support for the opposition, which, true to its winner-take-all philosophy, is calling yesterday's results "a fraud" despite the Carter Center's endorsement of the results.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not attempting to romanticize another populist third-world leader. I'm merely arguing that the US must accept the leftward tilt of Latin America, a phenomenon which was violently postponed during the Cold War by illegal US intervention. Poll after poll shows that a majority of Latin Americans want activist governments that will negotiate equitable free trade agreements with the US and EU and that will spend more revenue on social programs than on repaying loans.
The US can continue to strong-arm bilateral free trade agreements, bolster unpopular opposition groups and propose absurd ideas like micro-loans and giving the poor the title to their land (a half-baked idea of right-wing Peruvian author Hernando de Soto that Washington think-tankers love to parrot) as a magical remedy to mass poverty. But as long as the US's self-interested approach continues to deprive the majority of Latin Americans of economic justice, the future of Latin America will lie in leaders who work as a bloc to challenge the US's power to negotiate unfair free trade agreements, who use their UN votes to complicate Republican war-mongering and who accept the realities of the market without allowing it to become an obstacle to the redistribution of their countries' wealth or from making long term investments in public infrastructure. Leaders like Chavez.
By the way, here's what Hugo Chavez had to say about John Kerry after watching one of his stump speeches:

“His speech seemed a lot like that of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. God free him from the fate of John Fitzgerald Kennedy… The Democratic Senator said that, for the people of the United States, his health care plan had to become a right for everyone and not a privilege for a few. Someone could have said, if this man had come here to visit the Adentro Barrio, ‘Chávez bought him already! He’s a Chavista!’ But no: He is a human being, and I believe he is pointed in the right direction. It is the direction that the people from the United States to the Southern Cone demand. The world demands equality, justice… If we leaders don’t understand this, the future of the world will bring the horror of new wars… I have here the path to this peaceful revolution. We will make it a reality to end, forever, the possibility of violence.”

I can only hope this email from "Mr. Shove It" Colin McNickle to the Tribune-Review's staff is a fake.

Tom Ridge's Terror Kids
September's National Terror Preparedness Month and that means it's time to warn the kids about Bin Laden's plan to launch an amphibious assault on Main Street USA. Quick, son, get the duct tape, a flashlight and your ritalin! From USA Today:

In schools, on the Internet and in TV and radio ads, youngsters will be introduced to a new Homeland Security mascot: a dog (an American shepherd) that will be named in a contest. The campaign, using the dog and a set of Ad Council advertisements, will encourage families to develop an emergency plan and talk about where kids should go, who will pick them up and how they will make contact.

For the past year, the Homeland Security Department and groups such as the American Red Cross have encouraged families to make plans and put together emergency kits.

The kits should include food and water, flashlights, battery-powered radios and anything else needed to get by for up to three days if the power is out, communications are down and it's impossible to leave home.

Officials have promoted these preparations as crucial not just for a terrorist attack but also for hurricanes, earthquakes and other disasters. Polls show four in 10 Americans have followed the advice.

I understand Ridge plans to make the announcement on September 9th, over a week after the month begins, at a NASCAR rally in Virginia. More later.

Thought it was worth mentioning (or reiterating) that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was not founded by any veteran, but by a Republican PR consultant from Houston, Merrie Spaeth. Spaeth was a "communications coach" for Ken Starr whose late husband ran for Texas lieutenant governor with G.W. Bush.

The spin Bob Costas and NBC are putting on the US Olympic men's basketball team's ass whooping by the little commonwealth of Puerto Rico is that "the US team is not a true Dream Team." I'm sorry, but the US Olympic committee and NBA would never send a basketball team to the games which they thought would be a colossal embarassment. I remember when the US team consisted entirely of college players and they still managed to compete with the USSR. This leads me to wonder if America no longer has a monopoly on talent in basketball.
Well, at least we have the NFL and WWF.
I'm also wondering which is worse: the networks' convention coverage or the Olympic coverage. I'm mean, can we see something other than 14 year old girls hopping around on a balance beam? How about some tae kwon do, or fencing or even ping-pong?

Let Goss Slide, Set Democracy Aside
As I've been saying all week, Porter Goss is an extremely dangerous figure whose confirmation as DCI must be opposed vigorously. I can't believe Kerry hasn't piped up against this nomination. Now he's effectively prevented himself from attacking Goss later on without being dubbed a flip-flopper by Bush. Newsweek provides the latest evidence of Goss' anti-democratic tendencies:

Rep. Porter Goss, President Bush’s nominee to head the CIA, recently introduced legislation that would give the president new authority to direct CIA agents to conduct law-enforcement operations inside the United States—including arresting American citizens.

The legislation, introduced by Goss on June 16 and touted as an “intelligence reform” bill, would substantially restructure the U.S. intelligence community by giving the director of Central Intelligence (DCI) broad new powers to oversee its various components scattered throughout the government.

But in language that until now has not gotten any public attention, the Goss bill would also redefine the authority of the DCI in such a way as to substantially alter—if not overturn—a 57-year-old ban on the CIA conducting operations inside the United States.

If Goss had his way, America would immediately return to the paranoid era of COINTELPRO, when the FBI actively infiltrated and attempted to destroy dissident organizations. Will congress allow that to happen again?

In the grand tradition of black Republicanism, the right-wing front group People of Color United, is serving the agenda of the white man. Well, actually, it's the agenda of one white man -- J. Patrick Rooney.
Rooney has bankrolled People of Color's (why they don't have a website, I don't know) new attack campaign against John Kerry, which consists of a series of commercials aired on black radio that challenge Kerry's credentials with blacks. Here's an excerpt from one:

"Our community doesn't need another rich, wishy-washy white politician.
And boy doesn't John Kerry come across as rich, wishy-washy and white!"

Since the ad doesn't posit Bush as a viable alternative to Kerry and since Bush could just as easily be perceived by blacks as a rich, wishy-washy white man, People of Color's ad campaign seems to actually be designed to discourage blacks from voting altogether. In other words, People of Color is essentially the PR arm of the GOP's sophisticated disenfranchisement campaign.
That it is funded by a rich white guy is not surprising. But what a white guy J. Patrick Rooney is. He's backed efforts to gut Washington DC's beleaguered public school system through vouchers; he's given $3.6 million to Republican candidates over the past ten years; he donated $121,000 to Bush's recount battle in 2000; he spent $1.9 million on attack ads against Al Gore in 2000; and most importantly, he has done more than anyone else to make Bush's Medicare bill a reality -- and has profited from it more than anyone else. From Mother Jones:

Rooney is the chairman emeritus of the Indianapolis-based Golden Rule Insurance Co., which has been selling health savings accounts through a now-expired pilot program that Rooney helped convince Congress to approve in 1996. Just days before the new Medicare bill passed, UnitedHealth Group, the largest insurer in America, paid $500 million in cash for Rooney's family-owned company—a move that analysts said was directly tied to the Medicare bill's provisions broadening the market for health savings accounts.

Confronted with accusations that he is cynically exploiting racial politics to advance his own agenda, Rooney made this absolutely ridiculous explanation to the Washington Post's Tom Edsall:

"For 21 years I have gone to an all-black church. They finally elected me over other black people to their church board. I'm one of them. I don't know what it has to do with health savings accounts."

Yeah, I'm one of them. That's the mantra of every insecure crypto-racist when they feel cornered. Rooney's claim that he was "elected over other black people to their church board" also smells funny. Besides his insinuation that he may even be blacker than some blacks, it's my understanding that Rooney is his church's biggest donor. Usually, a congregation automatically elevates its major donors to the board.
I will be on Air America's Laura Flanders show Sunday at 7:30ET/4:30PT to discuss Rooney's attack campaign.

...and Schwarzenegger was going to execute this guy.

Why I've endorsed Joanna Conti
I'm not going to go as far as to predict victory for Joanna Conti, a fiscally conservative Democrat running in Colorado's 6th congressional district, but her run against xenophobic demagogue Tom Tancredo is shaping up to be the sleeper race of the year.
Now that both Democrats and moderate Republicans view Conti as a serious candidate, donations have started pouring in -- she has out-raised Tancredo in the past two filing periods, quite a feat for a neophyte challenging an incumbent.
And Tancredo is vulnerable. Besides his single-minded determination to demonize immigrants every chance he gets, a crusade that has led him to spend excessive amounts of time in South Eastern Arizona hanging out with border militias and vigilante thugs like Roger Barnett, Tancredo has only sponsored one bill that has become law: the renaming of an Arizona visitor's center to honor a park ranger killed while chasing Mexican drug traffickers.
There's also the fact that Tancredo supports a terrorist group which, according to the 9-11 commission, was funded by Saddam Hussein. I don't know if the Conti campaign has raised this issue, but it couldn't hurt.
Throughout Colorado, Democrats are making a strong showing -- including John Kerry. Read independent Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli's analysis on Colorado's surprising shift to swing-state status.
I normally wouldn't urge support of a blue dog Democrat like Conti, but I find Tancredo's immigrant bashing so abhorrent (he is sponsoring a ballot measure in Colorado that would deny basic health care services to undocumented workers), that I've given Conti my only endorsement so far this election year.
You can donate to her campaign here.

Is the Rapture Index a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity or a prophetic speedometer?
Or is it, perhaps, evidence of the psychological seductiveness of the apocalypse for people with hum-drum lives?

The GOP plans to forgo brainpower in its effort to bring starpower to the convention. The New York Post reports:

"the GOP is reaching out to Kelsey Grammer, Lee Ann Womack, Kid Rock, Dennis Miller, Britney Spears and country stars Brooks & Dunn in hopes that they'll lend some star power to the Republican National Convention."

Here are a few questions:
Will Kid Rock fly the Confederate flag as he so often does on tour?
Will Britney still be married when she walks on stage or will we need another federal amendment to protect our most sacred institution?
Will Dennis Miller repeat his racist rant about the Third World, which actually reads like a Bush administration policy paper:

"The biggest problem facing citizens of the third world is one quite literally of their own making, and that is over-population. Hey folks one way to conserve precious energy is to NOT FUCK EVERY 12 SECONDS. I have to admit I get a little angry when I read about the starving family consisting of a mother, father and TWENTY-THREE CHILDREN. Fer chrissakes lady, it's a vagina, not a clown car.

With the populations of these places climbing exponentially every year, you have to wonder, where do they get the energy to fuck? I mean, they're starving and yet they still have enough stamina for sex. Jesus, I forget to eat my between-brunch and-lunch high protein Strawberry Yogurt Powerbar, and eight hours later, I can't get the mini-Dune-Worm to perk up if I attach live jumper cables to my balls."

From now on, donations to this site will help pay for a one-way ticket to Najaf for Dennis Miller.

With Sunday's recall vote in Venezuela drawing closer, it's worth asking how the US could possibly deny having meddled in Venezuela's affairs for the past three years. Through the National Endowment for Democracy, the US has directly funded Hugo Chavez's opposition and encouraged them in their intransigence. How would the Bush campaign react if Kerry was taking hundreds of thousands from Venezuela? Well, that's what we're doing in Venezuela and dozens upon dozens of countries throughout the world.
And one more thing: can anyone point to anything other than Chavez's "populist rhetoric" which reveal him to be significantly more undemocratic than any other Latin American leader?
Much more coming later.

Lil' swifty John O'Neill: ""I've had no serious involvement in politics of any kind in over 32 years."
Whatevah man.

The Kerry campaign has issued a press release quoting FOX's Milwaukee affiliate's report that, “The Wisconsin Republican Party has a booth at the State Fair that sells Bush shirts made in Honduras and Haiti. Hats on sale come from China.” [Fox6Milwaukee.com, 8/12/04] Since I can't find the actual story, I have to report this as an allegation. But given earlier reports that Bush/Cheney sweatshirts were made in Burma by virtual slave labor, there's no reason to doubt it.
To be sure, the free trade zone in Haiti in which the Bush shirts are probably made, the Codevi free trade zone, was established under the watch of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was under intense pressure during the 1990's from the Clinton administration and the World Bank to embrace free trade. As the price for Clinton facilitating his return to power, Aristide also agreed to accept ridiculous conditions like dropping Haiti's tariff on foreign rice. This obliterated Haiti's vibrant indigenous rice economy and forced many farmers into the sweatshops of Codevi.
Not only has Bush supported a coup to do away with the reluctantly compliant Aristide and install a World Bank official as interim prime minister, if his campaign is purchasing shirts from Codevi, well, that's like a personal rubber stamp on the outsourcing agenda.
Currently, Haiti's industrial elite provides multinationals with some of the Western hemisphere's cheapest labor and enforces some of the harshest conditions for workers. For a snapshot of working conditions in Codevi, where Levi's workers were recently beaten by Dominican soldiers for attempting to form a union, check out Haiti Support Group's letter to Levi's.

It's inconceivable to me that so many congressional Democrats are willing to pass up the opportunity to use the Goss confirmation hearings as a springboard to attack Bush's mishandling of the "war on terror" and his pre-Iraq distortions.
As House intel committee chair, Goss has acted as little more than a Bush surrogate, using his position to legitimize and promote the most specious bits of disinformation put forth by the White House -- especially the notion that Saddam and Al Qaeda were somehow in cahootz (sorry, no link):

CNN, September 25, 2002
Wolf Blitzer Reports

...Congressman Goss, Mr. Chairman. let me begin with you. Should the United States be targeting Iraq right now as a suspect in these terrorist attacks?

REP. PORTER GOSS (R-FL), INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Absolutely yes. There is a long outstanding account with Iraq, and it would just plain be naive and foolish not to try and attend to directly what they are about these days. Saddam Hussein has made some very strong declarations about this country, has been extremely uncooperat-ive, tried to marshal international forces, public opinion against us, and basically deceive and mislead his population for years.

The fact that they are heavily involved in all kinds of cheating and other activities to get around the sanctions and contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other plagues on society, seems to me they ought to be right up near the top of the list.

BLITZER: But, Mr. Chairman, is there any hard evidence that Iraq played a direct role in the attacks that occurred on September 11th here in the United States?

GOSS: This is an ongoing investigation, and I would prefer to let the investigation go a little further before we start answering specific questions like that. There is certain sufficient evidence out there to warrant targeting of Iraq for investigation purposes.

The prevailing logic in congress must be that given Bush's flagging popularity and the likelihood of his demise, there's little need to risk dealing him a political poker chip. But Bush's weakness is exactly why the Democrats should lambaste Goss. This is not 2002, when Bush was pushing 70% in the polls. The public is exhausted with Bush's kulturkampf, his fearmongering and his politicization of policy. None of his rhetoric seems to hold water anymore. And in the wake of the DNC's four days of anger-management, the Democratic base could use some red meat.
But most importantly, Bush could win, and if he does, America will be stuck with the most dangerous DCI since Dulles.

If the Bush administration had its way, every function of government would be privatized, including the surveillance of private citizens. The administration's plan to ratchet up surveillance of Americans did not stop when congress killed Total Information Awareness, nor was it stifled when public outrage forced the White House to back out of implementing its TIPS vigilance committee program. These fundamentally undemocratic programs have been outsourced to the private sector so insidiously it is becoming increasingly difficult to gauge the degree to which domestic spying has increased or to hold government accountable for it.
One thing is clear, however: corporations and individuals have been enlisted to do the Bush administration's bidding and surveillance is growing more aggressive. Just download and read the ACLU's alarming yet non-alarmist report, "The Surveillance-Industrial Complex" and you'll see what I mean. Here's a particularly troubling excerpt:

• “CAT Eyes.” A program called
“Community Anti-Terrorism Training
Institute,” or “CAT Eyes,” is working to
“educate citizens in the civilian community
to be effective eyes and ears for potential
terrorist activities.” Embraced by police
departments from across the eastern U.S., it
aims for the formation of hierarchically
structured “neighborhood block watches”
including “Neighborhood Coordinators,”
“Block Captains” and “Block Watchers,”
each of whom “acts as eyes and ears for law
enforcement and reports any suspicious
activity.” The program’s motto is “watching
America with pride not prejudice.”12

• Real Estate Watch. Police outside
Cincinnati have set up a pilot program in
which the police train real estate agents
“how to be observant.” The realtors keep
their eyes open for suspicious activity as
they make their rounds, based in part on
alerts provided by the police, and report
back anything suspicious they see.13

• Florida’s TIPS. In a direct local imitation
of the original TIPS concept, police in
Orange County, Florida are planning to
train emergency personnel, cable workers
and other public and private workers to look
for and report evidence of terrorism, drug
trafficking, or child pornography in private
homes. Overseen by Florida state police
officials, the program’s brochure originally
included an element of explicit racial profiling.
Though that was removed, the program is
still underway, leaving homeowners to
wonder if anything in their home might
draw suspicion whenever a cable or utility
worker comes in to do a repair.14

The tide is turning in Florida, at least according to Quinnipac's poll:

Democratic challenger John Kerry leads President George W. Bush 47 – 41 percent among Florida voters, with 4 percent for independent candidate Ralph Nader, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. With Nader out of the race, Sen. Kerry leads President Bush 49 – 42 percent.

Bush and Kerry were locked in a 43 – 43 percent dead heat, with 5 percent for Nader, in a June 29 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN uh-pe-ack) University.

Florida voters disapprove of the job President Bush is doing 54 – 44 percent, compared to a 52 – 46 percent disapproval June 29.

I wonder how much of a factor Bush's new draconian rules for travel to Cuba were in this shift. Regardless, the internals show the obvious: there is a wellspring of anger toward Bush's economic policies and the only issue he has left is terrorism. The only thing he has to fear is the lack of fear.

The RNC's roster of entertainers is not yet fully disclosed, but from the looks of the acts scheduled so far, the convention could be a repeat of Houston in 1992, when country and Christian acts projected the Republican party to America as a great, big whites-only country club (no Kissingers allowed either). I'm waiting eagerly for the announcement of a few backlash acts like Darryl Worley or Toby Keith. The dream would be to have Merle Haggard sing the mother of all backlash anthems, "Fightin' Side of Me" -- "If you're tryin' to run my country down, son you're walkin' on the fightin' side of me." Here's a list of acts scheduled so far:

_Michael W. Smith, one of the top stars in contemporary Christian music who has occasionally crossed over to the pop charts.

_The Gatlin Brothers, who have been performing for four decades in country music and had a string of hits in the 1970s and 1980s. They cut back on nationwide touring in 1992.

_Daniel Rodriguez, a former New York City policeman and tenor who became well known singing a capella versions of "God Bless America" and the national anthem after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

_Sara Evans, one of the promising young performers in country music who has had a number of hits on the country charts. In 1998, she had a hit album "No Place That Far" and the title song on the album became her first No. 1 hit.

Other entertainers at the convention include Dana Glover, a young performer, who sang on the soundtrack for the movie "Shrek," veteran actor Ron Silver, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of daytime talk show "The View" and surfer-turned-singer Daize Shayne.

Am I going insane or did I hear that NPR is now supported by a grant from Wal-Mart?
I heard it with my own two ears but somehow, because I can't find a link to a story about it, it doesn't seem real.
Personally, I wouldn't be so up in arms about NPR's tragic death knell if I had an alternative. I used to be able to turn to Pacifica, but with the notable exception of the Ian Masters show, most of the L.A. affiliate's programming seems to have been taken over by a cadre of jejune Marxists.

From that old curmudgeon Porter Goss:

"I know some people are worried Big Brother is watching them, but the fact is, bin Laden is watching us.”

--Porter Goss, Miami Herald, June 5,2002

The DCI nominee's crazy -- and rich. Too bad we're not talking about Marlon Brando.

Roll Call, January 15, 2001
The Roll Call 50 Richest
By Amy Keller

...16. (tie) Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) $20 million

The former CIA agent and newspaper publisher listed assets totaling close to $18 million, according to his most recent financial disclosure forms, down only slightly from the $19.5 million he listed last year.

His greatest assets are between $1 million and $5 million in IBM stock, between $1 million and $5 million in General Electric stock, between $1 million and $5 million in Merck & Co. stock and between $1 million and $5 million in Wal-Mart Stores stock. He also listed a trust, the William J. Robinson Family Trust, valued at between $1 million and $5 million. Goss also owns farmland in Rapidan, Va., valued at between $500,001 and $1 million.

Will have more Goss stuff later today. This is truly a dangerous figure.

I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese. This poor guy signed on for what he must have thought would be a quixotic crusade against corporate hegemony, but wound up (probably unwittingly) expending undue amounts of energy trying to distance Ralph from the GOP. In fact, while I have seen dozens upon dozens of apologetic Zeese quotes this year identical to the one in this sad but all-too-typical story, I have yet to see Zeese get the chance to denounce the anti-democratic corporate agenda.
Which goes to show how the GOP is using the Nader campaign not only to sabotage John Kerry's presidential aspirations, but also to destroy popular resistance to corporate power -- and by extension, Ralph Nader himself.

No more tabloid-style headlines. This is my new style. I've turned over a new leaf and resolved to make reasoned arguments like "classicist" Victor Davis Hanson does.
This is no time for anger and pessimism. This is a time to build an ownership society, pay top dollar for Saudi crude, guzzle it down like hemlock and watch our blood ooze into the fetid sewers of Basra while we blithely sing along with Alan Keyes.

Looks like momentum is building on the Khan leak. Chuck Schumer's call for an investigation is an encouraging first step.
This is by far the most explosive story right now, not the least because Condi has admitted her involvement.
A front page Times story is way overdue.

Despite the key role played by several of its employees in the Abu Ghraib torture-burlesque show, the private mercenary contractor CACI has somehow been awarded a hefty contract extension by the Pentagon. Congratulations on a job well done, guys. You made our country proud. From Reuters:

CACI, which says it has not uncovered any wrongdoing by its employees, said the four-month extension is worth $15.3 million and has two optional extensions worth up to $3.8 million each.

“We have been criticized by some for our providing interrogation services at the request of the U.S. Army, but we have been resolute in our position that in war time we should respond wh